


Two Souls

by Naelyn



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Canon Era, Character Study, Dreams, Emotional Hurt, Enemies to... something, Feelings, Friendship, Magic, Morally Ambiguous Character, Morgana Knows about Merlin's Magic (Merlin), POV Merlin (Merlin), POV Morgana (Merlin), Post-Battle of Camlann (Merlin), Post-Episode: s05e13 The Diamond of the Day, actually everyone knows, discussions, retrospection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 08:54:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29382375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naelyn/pseuds/Naelyn
Summary: “I’ve gone soft over the days, you know. A few months ago, I would have killed you where you stood.”“A few months ago, you did try to kill me where I stood,” Merlin reminded her, and she could hear the smirk in his tone.“Oh, don’t be such a spoilsport. You did, too.”“Well. A few months ago, we were in Camlann, not locked together in that cell, doomed to perish together.”“Circumstances,” Morgana decided, crossing her arms over her chest. “That’s all it is.”“Sure.” He was smiling again - she just knew it.A bit uncertainly, she asked, “Was it circumstance that pitted us against each other, too?”She heard him release a breath, then say, “I hope. Gods, I hope it.”or,A few days after Camlann, Merlin and Morgana find themselves imprisoned in the same place, and forced to spend their days together.Basically, this is just a pretext for non-stop Merlin/Morgana interaction once the Emrys reveal has been made.
Relationships: Merlin & Morgana (Merlin)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 49





	Two Souls

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!  
> So, this is something I've been wanting to write for a long time.  
> I chose 'Teen And Up Audiences', because there's nothing explicit, really, BUT Merlin and Morgana are in quite a dark state, and Merlin DOES have suicidal thoughts, although they remain vague. And really, pretty much the whole story is Merlin and Morgana knowing that at some point, they will die, and Merlin being quite apathetic to it, so death is very present. There isn't anything explicit, but the whole tone is quite dark and desperate, I think. There is also a (very short) physical fight, and mentions of physical injuries, but it all remains vague and it's not the main focus. The main focus is the dialogue, and the emotional angst. That's the way I see it, at least.  
> If you read it, and find that I've forgotten to point out something, please do tell me! But, yes, I don't know what else to say except that it's really dark, even though there are light moments, and Merlin and Morgana being both in a 'bad' place, they don't necessarily drag each other upwards.  
> It's really just discussions, and feelings, and memories, and me having fun writing two characters that I love. It is probably not very much in-character. I hope you like it all the same ^^ oh, and the setting is quite minimalistic, I really just focused on Morgana and Merlin's relationship, so feel free to imagine whatever you like! Also, I tried to remain a bit vague on the nature of Merlin and Morgana's relationship - all I wanted to insist on was the connexion between them. :)  
> I really hope you like it, and I'd be glad to read your opinion, on what I wrote or on Merlin in general :) hope you like it!  
> oh, and I hope you don't mind the POV shifts. I really was just trying some new things ahaha, and I had great fun writing it!  
> If you want a little bit of context:  
> The Battle of Camlann has left Merlin's magic revealed. Arthur survived the battle. Morgana is not dead, she simply vanished from the battle. A few days after Camlann, Merlin ends up in the same cell as she. They've no choice but to cohabit, preferrably trying not to kill each other.  
> (honestly, the context doesn't make a lot of sense ahaha. sorry! ) 
> 
> Hope you have a great day/night :)

_Breathe._

Blades clashing, men screaming, fire eating all that stood in its way.

_Breathe._

Warriors falling by the numbers, with no one to catch them but death. The white shape of a dragon roaming the skies, its great maw crying tears of flames that fell like thunder on the soldiers on the battlefield. The entire ground, unsteady, shaking at each yell from the gigantic beast that had once been a child.

_Breathe._

The traitorous warlock standing on the edge of the cliff, begging the magic inside him to put an end to the most ruthless battle that he had ever witnessed.

Camlann. That wretched piece of earth that had been the death of so many human lives, and of the trust that King Arthur had once granted his servant, Merlin.

_Breathe, breathe, breathe._

As Merlin looked around him, the cell that he found was like a relief to him, compared to the open grounds that had been Camlann that had given him no room to hide. Here, at least, as a prisoner, he would be free to die in peace.

Well… in a relative sort of peace.

“So… what should I call you now?” Lady Morgana asked, her dark, blue eyes not leaving the shape of Merlin’s body, gleaming like diamonds in the darkness of the cell.

A very relative sort of peace.

“Merlin… or Emrys?”

Her remark elicited a joyless chuckle from the back of Merlin’s throat, an ugly sound, really. Not as much from the place it had come from than from the bitterness that it contained. For years, Merlin had pitied Morgana for the bitterness in her laugh, that bitterness, seemingly intrinsic to her voice these days, but now - now, he thought he finally got it.

Wished he didn’t, but he did.

It was a foul thing to hate, a foul thing to regret, and laughing could be a nice way to do just that: hate in a manner that post people saw fit to use in order to express their joy. It was like casting a call for help, in a certain way. Shouting, _help me, I_ _’m lost!_ , in a language that no one, save for the most broken of souls, could possibly hope to understand. And most broken souls had no interest in helping each other, did they? Some of them had even helped in making each other that way. Look at Morgana and Merlin, for instance. Two desperate souls that had preferred to each live their own separate falls rather than cling to the edge together.

 _We fell separately, and now, look at us both, having ended up in the same pit._ Fate had a cruel sense of humour, sometimes.

“Whatever you like, Morgana,” Merlin chose to reply calmly, almost not recognising his own voice, broken as it was.

 _Call me a hero, or a villain, or a coward. Give me a sword, or two red horns, or two quick legs to run. Won_ _’t change the fact that I’m lying here, in a sordid pit, right next to you. Won’t change a thing about the quality of my soul._

It was Morgana’s turn to laugh, then. An ugly burst of laughter, quite akin to Merlin’s. He smiled without meaning to. Anger flashed in the lady’s eyes. “Oh? And what if I choose to call you, say, _traitor_?”

 _Would have expected something better from you,_ he mused, feeling oddly detached to the whole thing.

“Come on, Morgana,” he said. “You and I are above that.”

She watched him as one would observe an amusing, but also slightly repelling, type of insect. “Above… what, exactly? Hating each other?”

It was surprisingly easy to admit their hatred for each other. Why was it so easy? Men prided themselves in being lover creatures, but it seemed that they hated just as smoothly.

He had a small smile. “Oh, that? Never. No, I meant, calling each other names and all that. Pointing fingers at each other’s soul, and yelling, _cowardice!_ Sure, it’s fun. For a while. But now, with you and I both locked in here, after all that’s happened? We both perfectly know how despicable the other’s soul is.”

Morgana remained quiet for a couple of seconds, staring at him wordlessly, her eyes seemingly looking for something on his face and failing to find it. Finally, she leaned against the wall, making herself as comfortable as the circumstances allowed them, and said, with a hint of amusement in her eyes, “I don’t recall you ever being so comfortable with my presence in the past. So… _calm_ , and contained. Is the cold iron around my wrists giving you a sense of safety? Or is it perhaps the meekness of my posture? Because let me warn you-“ she leaned towards him, eyes dangerous, “- as ravaged as my body may be, my hatred for you, _Emrys_ , remains intact in my heart.”

Unfazed, Merlin gave a light shrug. “You could always try to hit me with a rock,” he suggested. “Could work.”

“Careful, careful. One might start to think that the almighty Emrys wants to end his days, and what a stain on your immaculate reputation that would be.”

 _My immaculate reputation_. Merlin almost snorted. So immaculate that half the kingdom hated him now.

Then he frowned. Albeit being undoubtedly bitter, Morgana’s voice lacked its usual bite, and he found himself wondering for what reason. Could it be that she found herself overwhelmed with the same weariness as the one that had been frowning upon Merlin’s soul for days now? Ever since Arthur had -

The warlock shook his head, unwilling to linger on such memories, and he shot Morgana a look that would once have been mischievous, but now conveyed nothing but tired knowledge of the hatred that they each harboured for each other. “Careful. One might start to think that Morgana might _care_.”

Morgana was quick to retort, snarling, “I don’t care.”

And merlin was quick to nod. “Oh, I know.”

Silence settled between them, before, a few minutes later, Morgana’s voice rose again.

“There are no stones heavy enough to hit you with here, anyway. ‘S the first thing I checked when I got here.”

A smiled stretched on the warlock’s lips as he closed his eyes for the first time since he had been thrown in the cell.

oOOo

Coming from Emrys, hero of prophecies, wielder of the powers of life and death, Morgana had been expecting something… else. _More_.

Sure, it did not help that he appeared as Merlin rather than the old, bearded Emrys, dressed in his robes, and nor did it help that he had clearly been starved, just like Morgana, for the last couple of days, but these aspects she would have been ready to overlook, had his behaviour been different.

For that was the real issue, here.

His temper. Or rather lack thereof.

He barely talked. Barely even ate, and by all rights, that should have made him pathetic - only, it didn’t. Perhaps Morgana herself had become so pathetic that she could not even acknowledge that trait in others, but she could not shake the feeling that _pathetic_ was not the right word to call Emrys. He was not doing any self-pitying on his fate at the moment, nor was he sobbing in his corner, whimpering in pain, begging for his life. On the contrary, he seemed oddly resolute to simply… flow with the current, wherever the latter might take him. He seemed old, almost transparent. Not really there.

Had Morgana not witnessed his quick responses earlier, she might have thought him to be a feeble replica of the Emrys she had fought a handful of days back, the Emrys who had clenched his fists and awoken the earth with a few cries, from atop the cliff looking down on the battlefield. She would have thought him to be an impostor, a young, ignorant serving boy playing at being a sorcerer. Only this _was_ the real Emrys, she could feel it, deep in her bones, and the real Emrys was -

Disappointing.

He was so… so… inconsistent. Dissatisfying. He wouldn’t even wince at her bitter quips! He could have been crying, yelling, blaming Morgana and the world, and she would not have blinked an eye, but this? Standing silently, still as water, and the bitterness in his tone sometimes even rivalling that of Morgana’s? That was _new_. That was wrong.

But what was the wrongest here, was indubitably his eyes. His eyes, that would look at her at times, but perhaps not really _see_ her.

He looked like one of those men, soldiers, who came back from war. While many at Court preferred to avoid looking their way, gifting them with a few words of praise and then spending the rest of their lives shamelessly content with ignoring their existence, Morgana herself had always found her attention drifting back to those men, oddly fascinated by the blankness in their stare. How could they be so empty? How could these men, having gone to war with the world in their heart, the world, and the fierce ambition to _make it right_ , have returned with nothing but memories, ugly sacks of memories staining their present, and burdening them with a sense of purposelessness they would not get rid of? They had no aim left, and the love that had fed their bodies as they’d taken arms against their foes was now hardly food enough to keep them alive. While most mortals looked at this world and saw something that they were fit for, some grand play that they most definitely had a role in, _they_ seemed to cast a glance at it, and decide that they had seen enough. That the play was simply not made for them. They’d seen atrocities, more than any man should see in a hundred lifetimes, and now they had deemed the rest of the world unworthy of their stare.

In this world, it seemed, they saw something that they had to distance themselves from, something that, for some reason, hardly even mattered any longer. Something they were no longer a part of.

And Emrys? Emrys looked like the soldier that had returned, the soldier who stood silently with eyes heavy from the deeds that they carried, and veiled from the inability to voice them. He looked like the soldier whose stories the children would sing about, and then, glancing at his face, wonder if they ever had been real in the first place. Wonder how to make cohabit such epic tales with that shadow of a man.

She had no idea why it bothered her that much. It was not that she _cared_ \- truly, it was not. A heart like Morgana’s would never be as pathetic as to come to care for those who had oppressed her. Her and her kind.

But there was something in him, though… something that led her to believe that, as different as they both were, perhaps they had _some_ thing in common, still. Something that rang the same way in both their souls. Something in the way that these souls were cracked.

She shook her head abruptly.

Then, glancing back at Emrys distrustfully, watching with distaste as the boy - servant - warlock - allowed his gaze to wander in the room:

“What are you doing anyway? Praying?”

Emrys scoffed. “Why? D’you think our gods are listening?”

For some reason, Morgana answered honestly to that. “They haven’t been listening to _me_ for a long time, that much is certain.” Then she cleared her throat, realising that she had just admitted to praying to the gods.

But Emrys didn’t seem to react; instead, he chuckled lowly, and murmured, more to himself than to Morgana, really, “They never do, do they?”

His _laugh_ was yet another matter to discuss. Was this the way that Morgana sounded when _she_ laughed aloud? She wondered. She hadn’t had a proper laugh in ages, and doubted she ever would, and so her current laughs were filled with bitter triumph rather than real joy. Sometimes, there was a hint of self-deprecation in them as well.

She could remember a young dark-haired serving boy whose laughs never seemed to end - even more disturbingly, she could remember a young dark-haired daughter of a king, laughing alongside him, laughing alongside this _traitor_.

_Pathetic._

“What would you pray for, anyway?” Morgana asked, scoffing, eager to get rid of those disturbing bits of memories. “All you’ve wished for has happened, after all, has it not?”

He had his golden king sat on his throne, alongside his radiant queen, with years of prosperity and happiness before them. They’d won. Selfless little Emrys ought to be happy about it.

“Safety for my friends,” the boy said after a few seconds of silence, and Morgana noticed that he was running his nails against the stone of the cell walls, watching it happen a bit absently. “Memory loss, maybe. For Gwen.”

 _Gwen._ The word echoed inside her head in what should have been an indifferent tone, but was, on the contrary, filled with feelings that Morgana chose to ignore. _Once and Future Queen_ , she reminded herself. She could recall feeling bitter when she had first seen Guinevere crowned in her visions, but now, all that she really felt was one great wave of sadness and memories of an ancient anger that now felt foreign in her heart. She wasn’t _angry_ , but rather sorry. Sorry that the gods had written their roles so, and that she had followed their scheme so obediently.

 _Guinevere, the Once and Future Queen of Albion_ _…_ Why did the gods have to make her that, too? Did they never stop making things worse? Why had they kept making the people around Morgana more than what she thought them to be?

 _Starting with him_ , she thought, looking up at Emrys just as resignation flashed in his eyes, all softness gone from his voice when he next spoke. “Not that it would make much use, anyway. Might have the opposite effect. Wouldn’t be that surprised if the gods did the perfect opposite just to spite me.”

 _The servant who turned into a sorcerer_ _…_

Morgana hummed. “Self-centred, are we?”

“Sorry.” The boy smiled a small smile that was a bit sheepish, too.

She had seen that smile many times in Camelot, often followed by irritated mumblings from Arthur or whispered words of despair by Gaius. It was odd to think back on such scenes of the past. Especially knowing what the bumbling, clumsy boy servant had become. A powerful sorcerer, protector of a king.

And now, here he was, wailing about destiny as though he had a clue what it felt like to be abused by it. He was only now having a glimpse, a tiny glimpse, of what Morgana had had to endue for _years_ … and he expected her to feel sorry for him?

“Save your prayers,” Morgana stiffly said. “We’ve played our roles.” _Our infernal roles_. “The gods aren’t listening to us any longer.”

And wasn’t that a sweet thought? She wanted to scream it, to scream to the world and to all the men of this land and the gods of these skies; wanted to scream, to anyone who would care to hear, that the man; nay, the warlock, whom the gods had once named their holy champion, was now just another of the many souls they had cast aside over the years - cast aside, as Morgana’s had been. Repeatedly so. The gods did not favour her much, she had been quick to understand that. With their easy malice, they had tripped her, pushed her towards the edge, driven her soul to the edge of madness.

But now? Now, it appeared that Emrys was not so far from the edge, himself. _Different roads, same destination._ Souls like his and hers were apparently doomed from the beginning, no matter the paths they took, no matter the type of justice they served. They were useful to the gods so long as they filled their purpose, but at some point, even the prettiest toys wore out, and so the gods chose to toss them aside, one by one. Good villains didn’t remain in the picture for long. Her fall had been the first one to occur, but Merlin’s own had followed closely.

The analogy of their respective lives brought Morgana inexplicable anger, and suddenly, she remembered why she despised him so. It was the gold that did it. The gold of his king’s crown and hair, the gold of his kingdom’s tapestries, the gold he was bathed into in all of the paintings. A gold that suggested that he was in the right, while she sank in the wrong. Poor Emrys, he had had to get his soul dirty, hadn’t he? And now, even his image would not save him. All the gold in the world would not save him. _Let him know the pain of mattering no more_ , she mused. The gods, for years and years, had favoured him; him, and his pretty king with his pretty crown and his even prettier queen. But now? Now, Emrys’s time was over, and Morgana wanted to laugh and laugh and laugh. The tide had finally turned, and while it had once carried puffs of glory and vain prosperity, now, all that it bore were gusts of bitterness and forgotten merriness. _That_ _’ll teach him some humility._

He was no more champion.

Look at him!

He could barely stand. He’d been defeated, and you could see it in his eyes.

Now, he was no more than a soul. A soul with no worth left to it. He didn’t matter. Morgana could kill him here and now, and the gods wouldn’t blink an eye. The both of them - they were ancient history, now. Old trinkets of a time of war. They had no place in this new world that King Arthur would build.

Not for the first time since she had seen Emrys standing in that cell, she thought about killing him, and about the way she would do it, the way she would choose to shut the life inside of him. She could always strangle his pretty neck, she guessed, but, as she flexed her fingers, she tensed, wondering if she would have the strength. With adrenaline, surely, but now? Angry as she might be, her body did not seem to follow. Days in captivity did that to you, it seemed: render your every limb weak, repellingly weak. And there was the matter of her magic. The matter of the iron around her wrists, the iron that kept clawing at her heart, clutching, clutching, clutching, ridding her of her powers. As he had suggested earlier, she would happily knock him out with a stone of some sort, and hit, and hit, and hit… yes, that would be nice. But it would take heavy rocks for that, and there were none.

She hated feeling so powerless.

She guessed that _he_ must be feeling quite powerless, too. The thought made her feel better, and then she hated herself a bit more, and felt a little worse. She sighed a small sigh before lying down, onto her side, and leaning her cheek against the cold ground. Years ago, when she’d been _just Morgana_ , the lady, not the witch, she would have had a thousand scenarios writing themselves inside her head. Scenarios of running away on her horse to discover foreign lands, or confronting Uther about the way that he ruled his kingdom and having him listen to her, or wielding a sword in the middle of a battle just to show them all what she was capable of; naive scenarios, really, but pleasant ones all the same. Now, she imagined that people thought that she dreamed of killing her foes in the most harmful manners, and even though she could not deny having entertained such thoughts, most of her dreams were not like that. Most of her dreams carried a bit of youth in them, the eyes of a horse she had ridden when she was young, or the laughter of a lady she had befriended during a banquet, and these small, harmless elements of youth found themselves colliding with harsh bits of reality - the enraged cry of a king, the floating stench of burnt flesh, the heartbroken call of a lost friend. Her dreams, in a way, were just like her: chaotic and hopeless. There was no fixing them. The only thing to do was to endure.

That was without mentioning the visions. How many nights had she woken up, screaming, one hand on her heart and the other searching for a touch? How many nights had she rolled to the side and tried to embrace a ghost, the ghost of a friend who had once whispered words of comfort at her ear? She was always cold come morning.

There were nights when she could hardly tell reality from the visions that she had, and nights when she struggled even to dissociate regular dreams from magic-induced visions. Loneliness did that to a person, it seemed. It turned you a bit mad - first, in the eyes of society, then, in your own eyes.

Emrys must think her mad, as well. Some lost cause, driven to the edge of madness, with no chance of redemption. Something to be pitied, perhaps. It was obvious in the looks that he gave her, and all the more infuriating. _He_ _’s terrified of becoming like me. And why wouldn’t he be? I’m terrified of being me._

Not for the first time since Emrys had been thrown into that cell, she wondered what would become of him. Having the servant next to her with his king nowhere in sight was an unusual thing. Surely he’d come running soon enough, playing the hero, as he had always liked to. She could remember when they were both young; he was already like that, she could recall. Eager to play the knight and save some maiden girl - obviously, he wanted Morgana to play that role, but she preferred to play a lady knight. Champion of the people, guardian of the weak; there were many things she wanted to be back then, but kingslayer wasn’t one of them. She could recall she and Arthur shivering whenever they saw the word written on the paper, could recall Geoffrey the librarian leaning towards them to whisper, _There_ _’s no worse crime in the world than that of slaying a king._ It was a point on which she and Arthur had agreed wholeheartedly. Somehow, they had seen in _kingslayer_ a synonym to cowardice, and neither her, nor Arthur, were craven. But now, she knew better. She knew that the crime in itself hardly matter; only the personality of the victim did. _Kingslayer._ She scoffed. What a ridiculous word. It was just another way for kings to protect themselves, another way to demonise a king’s enemies while the king’s doings, on contrary, were seldom ever questioned. It didn’t matter that the said king burned men by the hundred and persecuted a whole people, no, because a king was a king. But to slay the king in question? Now, that was a grave offence.

 _If I had a crown on top of my head, would they call be queen rather than monster?_ Morgana sometimes wondered - but then she remembered that she despised these people, all of them, who had stood by as her people burned - _stood by, as I once did_ -, and all her interrogations were gone, leaving only rage in her heart.

 _Where is the rage now?_ Seeing Emrys look so slumped on himself had somehow softened her usual heated temper, leaving her feeling just as tired as him. She hated it.

oOOo

Leaning against the wall, folded knees tucked underneath his arms, Merlin felt very much like the monster from the tales that men read to their children. The monster you had to stay away from, at all means, lest they start to corrupt you. The monster whose prayers the gods didn’t even listen to, because what possible wish, coming from so awful a being, could deserve to be heard and achieved? Monsters didn’t prey; their victims did.

And Merlin had had many of those, particularly if he counted Morgana’s victims as his own.

Idly, he wondered what his loved ones would think of him if they were to read a tale depicting him as the monster. The warlock concealing his identity as the prince’s servant, poisoning the king’s ward, placing his stupid trust in stubborn prophecies. They’d hate him, no doubt. But they already did, so he doubted it would change much, in the end.

He sighed, looking at Morgana, _again_ , and almost winced when he met her gaze. Surprisingly, there was no true heat left to it; she was simply observing him in silence, seemingly discontent with what she read in him, or perhaps didn’t read.

“I expected you to be… angrier,” he said, unable to help it. He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth, having been content with the silence between them so far, but there was no taking them back, and as Morgana stretched slowly forward, not leaving his eyes once, he thought her apparent to a cat. A predator, watching him in the dark.

He thought her to be more scary like that than when she was screaming, laughing and threatening Arthur’s kingdom with magic at the tips of her fingers. Perhaps it was because her entire attention was focused on him, now.

“I expected you to be happier,” she retorted, quirking an eyebrow as she studied him. “Stronger.” Then, sniffing: “Older, too. Still don’t get why the gods picked a child to do their dirty job.”

“We were all children,” Merlin murmured, memories of his early days in Camelot flashing inside his mind. He ran a tired hand in his hair. “For what it’s worth, I don’t get it either. It just… was. Is.”

“ _Is?_ ” A slight smirk curled Morgana’s lips, and Merlin braced himself for the words to come. “ _Is?_ You still think they want you after _that_? After tossing us both in that cell?” She scoffed, looking at Merlin as she would look at a young boy speaking nonsense, a boy whose naivety she wasn’t sure whether to despise or to envy.

“The gods didn’t toss us in that cell, _men_ did,” the warlock rectified.

“The gods _let_ ‘them,” she instantly replied, categorically. “We’re of no interest to them anymore.”

“Well.” Merlin shrugged. “Doesn’t change the fact that I’m still Emrys, whether I want it or not. Whether I _feel_ it or not.”

“A cell does that to you,” she murmured, her words seemingly directed at herself rather than at Merlin. The warlock listened to her all the same as she kept mumbling, “dirt, rats, stench. You forget that you’re human after a while. Forget what’s you and what is the rest.” She suddenly shook her head, and her eyes refocused on Merlin. “Funny, isn’t it?” The laugh she gave sounded like a forced one. “The one time people know you to be Emrys is when you feel like it the less. _I_ think it’s funny.”

Merlin closed his eyes. “Yeah. I’m sure you find that hilarious hilarious.”

“Sore topic?” she taunted.

“No, just one I’m tired of discussing.”

Even though he did not see her, he could hear the snarl on her lips as she said, “Poor you.”

Before he could even register what he was doing, Merlin opened his eyes and leaned forward, observing Morgana with curiosity. “Aren’t _you_ tired of it? Ever? Tired of this - this _role_ that you play constantly. _Morgana the evil witch_ , trying to extinguish Uther’s legacy, always fighting and losing and fighting again, aren’t you sick of it?”

Her eyes flashed in anger.

“At least the grounds that I fight for are grounds I can live with. But guilt doesn’t seem to concern you much, am I wrong, Emrys? Tell me, please. I’m dying with curiosity. How do you _do_ it? Pick the men that you serve? Do you… look at their killing scores, and pick those whose kingdoms hold the nicest pyres? In that case, you picked well. Oh, there must be something utterly satisfying in what you do, or else you wouldn’t do it. In standing by a tyrannic king, knowing that you are untouchable, and watching as your people burn in front of you. It’s gotta be thrilling, no?”

The next words came swiftly, and they came with a cold smile.

“You know the feeling,” Merlin said. “You were Uther’s daughter, after all.”

He saw the specific moment that Morgana lost her composure, the specific instant when it all _shifted_ , and next he knew, she was on him, hitting, hitting, hitting.

Merlin didn’t move an inch, regardless of the trails of blood that he could feel trickling down the lines of his face.

He didn’t speak a word as the guards came into the cell to set them apart, although he suspected they had voluntarily their time to intervene, nor did he voice a complaint when they tied his hands to the wall so as to keep he and Morgana out of each other’s reach.

The night that followed was a silent one, the only audible sounds being his and Morgana’s hurried breaths.

Merlin’s tongue tasted like metal. His face felt numb. His hands kept shaking. Never before had the iron around his wrists felt colder as it did just then.

When dawn came, Morgana’s voice cut through the cell. “’M not his daughter.”

“’M not Emrys.”

“Earlier, you said you were.”

Remembering the words she’d said, the attitude she had accused him of having, he winced. “Changed my mind.”

“I am not his daughter.” Her tone was firm. Unflinching.

“Don’t call me Emrys, and I won’t refer to you as his daughter.”

He waited for her answer.

Finally, it came. “Alright.”

“Alright.”

And so their deal was sealed. It was not peace. Far from it. But it was something. The sort of desperate deal that only truly desperate souls were pitiful enough to make. Perhaps they _were_ meant to meet again in that place, in that time. Merlin didn’t know how he felt about that.

Morgana respected her side of the deal. Since she would no longer be calling him _Emrys_ , he half-expected her to start calling him _traitor_ instead, as she had suggested the day before. However, save for a few japes making good use of the word, she practically didn’t use the word anymore, choosing to call him by the name that his ma had given him.

“ _Mer_ lin.”

He didn’t even think she said it like that on purpose. It didn’t stop the memories from flashing into his mind each time she did.

“Merlin…” Once, she scoffed. “Like the bird,” she said. “I _knew_ there was a reason you were so efficient in fleeing danger situations.”

Cowardice was a recurrent topic in her speech, but at least the tone dripped with sarcasm with which she’d call him Emrys was gone for good, and Merlin was grateful for it. He had also learnt to reply to such comments of hers with a laugh. Not a joyful one, mind, but not a bitter one either. Just… a reply. Something that spared him the effort of finding proper words. And it suited her. Allowed her to speak as she liked. Occasionally, she would laugh back at him, too.

Another thing that she liked was to assume that she knew what he thought. Which clearly, she did not.

“How funny this must be to you,” she had said one morning, out of the blue. When Merlin had turned questioning eyes on her, she had explained in a falsely light tone, “One saint and one sinner, about to die together, in the middle of nowhere. Who would’ve guessed?”

“I’m confused,” he had replied. “Are _you_ the saint?” He had thought it rather bold of her to call herself so, and had remarked of it. “Because you _have_ sinned, Morgana.” _As have we all._

“Don’t you think I know that?” she had snapped. “Do not toy with me.” But then she had read the perplexity in his eyes, and her tone had somehow softened. “You’re serious? Obviously, _you_ are the saint. Hence the irony of our situation.”

Scoffing, Merlin had replied, “’M no saint. Never was one.”

Surprise had ruled over her face for a couple of seconds. “Alright,” she had then relented. “Two sinners, then, let’s say.”

“Two sinners,” he echoed. “They could right poetry about us.”

She had snorted. “More like tales to deter their children from becoming like us.”

“Maybe they should try loving them, instead.”

“Hm.” A sad laugh had left Morgana’s throat. “Maybe they should.”

oOOo

They weren’t _friends_ , or anything. Morgana didn’t do friends.

She still hated him ardently. Just… perhaps less ardently than she did most people. She found that it was hard to remain angry with someone, really angry, placing all of her energy into that one feeling, when you were to be locked with that person in a cell for what would perhaps be your entire life.

Besides, Emrys - _Merlin_ , she rectified in her mind - wasn’t as boring as she would’ve thought. He had a way with word, and he didn’t take himself half as seriously as most powerful men did. But then, he was hardly powerful anymore, was he? He and Morgana, they had scarce anything left to lose.

And even if they laughed from time to time, momentarily forgetting who the other was, it was still alright, wasn’t it? They weren’t _hurting_ anyone; the only ones they risked hurting were themselves, and she had stopped worrying about her own fate a long time ago.

So here they were, laughing at a topic, one of the few common topics that they had found. These topics they often addressed with no small amount of self-derision and jibes, either at the world or simply at each other, and it _did_ take your mind off things. Unpleasant things. Unpleasant memories.

“Oh, Merlin,” she found herself saying at some point, the name rolling off her tongue rather easily, “I wonder what your almighty king would say were he to see you laughing here with me.”

The boy’s answer surprised her, particularly given how naturally it came, practically matter-of-factly. “Probably something in the lines of, _pff, sorcerers, all the same! Wretched creatures, all of them!_ ”

Morgana frowned. “You mean to say that…”

“Yep.”

“He’s…”

“Yep.”

“And he knows… _everything_?”

He scratched the back of his neck, feigning carelessness, but Morgana knew better. “He knows _some_ of it,” the boy acknowledged, frowning his nose unhappily. “The only things that matter to him.” He smiled a smile that did not reach his eyes as he pointed at himself, saying, “Me, sorcerer. Therefore, traitor. Therefore, banished. I’m just… Not wanted in the picture anymore. Not by him.”

Instantly, Morgana scoffed, and she was surprised to hear indignation in that sound. She opened her mouth. Closed it. Bit her lip, then glanced at the window, high atop their heads. Daylight was showing.

“Oh, Merlin,” she said. “Society does hate us both, does it not?”

“You hate it in return,” he naturally replied, and she could hear his smile as he said it.

“Course I do,” she assented, almost proudly.

She felt a bit irritated with hersef when she found that she could not help thinking back on Merlin’s words. The thought of his own king banishing him… As much as she tried to picture it, she struggled. One would have to be a fool to want to get rid of a weapon as valuable as Merlin, and loyal at that! But then, this was _Arthur_ they were talking about. Arthur, whom she remembered to be stubborn and infuriatingly unflinching in his ideals. To get an idea through that thick skull of his could take _years_ , and, as she looked at Merlin and noticed how weary he looked, she doubted he would have that much time in front of him.

The thought irritated her even further. “You and I,” she suddenly said, perhaps trying to soothe some of the boy’s aches, “we’re not heroes. That would be a sweet thought - but we’re not. Arthur, he’s one. A _proper_ one. He’s even got the crown to show for it.”

“Not to mention the sword,” Merlin said with a small smile.

“ _Exalibur_ ,” she snorted. “Yeah.” Shesniffed. “My point is, you and I, we’re just - we’re just dark spots. Ugly reminders of the blood that Uther and generations of men spilt in the name of fear. They sinned and sinned and sinned, and we’re the result of it. The broken legacy of men who did what men do best: be cruel. Our role’s not a fair one. But it doesn’t matter anyway, ‘cause we’re old stuff. _They_ ’re the new age, but us? We’ve been in this picture for far too long. They don’t want us here anymore.”

She could feel the boy’s attentive eyes on her as she spoke. Then, with a teasing tone, Merlin said, “What does _hero_ even mean anyway, these days?”

And back they were in yet another one of their silly discussions about men and their ugly concepts, a discussion that lasted the entire morning.

oOOo

“I didn’t recall you being so cynical, Merlin,” she said one day.

Merlin glanced down at his own feet, shrugging. “Didn’t recall myself being a lot of things.”

“Well.” She cracked a smile. “I must say I quite enjoy that part of you. This less… naive… part of you. I’d even go so far as to say that you’re rather fun to converse with… except when you’re being self-deprecating, that is. That’s just annoying.”

The warlock cracked a smile, too. “You’re not bad company yourself.”

oOOo

“You used to be so full of ideals,” Morgana observed a few days later, struck by how little feelings seemed to transpire at times, when the warlock spoke of certain matters. “Ideals about nobility, and kings, and what was right and what was wrong.”

“If I recall correctly, as did you. _Sometimes, you_ _’ve got to do what you feel is right, and damn the consequences_ ; isn’t that what you said, once?”

Morgana looked away, stiffening. “Well, that’s what I’m doing now, isn’t it?”

“No.” The warlock shook his head, eyes suddenly looking very sad. “I don’t think that’s what you’re doing. And I think you know it, too.”

She did not like that topic.

“Merlin.” Morgana looked at him with gravity. “You and I… we can’t set each other rightly. We just can’t. It’ll only end badly, so don’t… don’t try to fix me. Just don’t.”

The warlock held her gaze for a few instants, before finally, he gave a slight nod.

“Do you miss them?” he asked at some point, gazing up at the ceiling, as he often did. Morgana wondered what he saw up there. Did he picture a sky full of stars inside his head? “These… people that we used to be. Do you miss them?”

Morgana took a deep breath. “I don’t know. Sometimes.” Then she swallowed, and straightened her back. “But then I remember how naive they were, how idealistic their hearts were, and that they wouldn’t have had a shot in the real world. It would’ve killed them.”

She saw him nod from the corner of her eyes. “’S strange, isn’t it?” he muttered. “To think of the persons that we could have been.”

 _Feeling remorseful?_ a more bitter Morgana would have said. Instead, she sighed, and began, “Merlin, I told you not to-”

“To each other.” He looked at her. “The persons we could have been… to each other.”

“Well.” She forced a laugh. “There’s even less use in thinking about that.” But the question stirred another interrogation in her heart, and before she could stop them, the words were out. “Did you ever love me, say? And I’m not asking you if you ever found me _pretty_ , or _attractive_ , or any of those ridiculous things. I’m asking if you ever loved me. If you ever cared for me. If you ever envisioned us being friends, siblings, anything - did you ever -?”

She was grateful that he cut her there to murmur, “Yes.” _Yes._ “Won’t you ask me if I still do?”

The witch scoffed. “I think I already know the answer to that.”

Merlin’s answer surprised her. “No,” he said sadly. “I don’t think you do.”

The words made her angry. Well, no the words, but rather the memories that they stirred in her… because all of a sudden, she was remembering what conditional and fickle a thing love was. _Love me. Love me not._ That was the way of things, was it not? They loved her when she was sweet and obedient, and lover her no longer when she was herself.

That was why she did not like speaking of how things were, because they always reminded her of how hateful she was now.

And Merlin was just an idiot if he thought that he was different from the others, different from all the others who had stopped caring for her. She understood such things, much better than he did. And she’d tell him.

“Oh, really?” She smiled a smile devoid of joy. “What did I get wrong, then? Let me guess. You just like _one part of me_ , the old Morgana, and resent the other? Is that it? D’you really figure it’s that easy?”

“No…”

“That everyone can just pick their favourite parts of what I am and leave the others out?”

“No.” His tone was calm. “I don’t think it’s that easy.”

“Well, you’re right,” she snarled. “It’s _not._ ” She looked down at her knees. “It’s not.” Then, back up a Merlin: “People have been trying to do that for years, y’know. Pick parts of me - the parts that they liked best. Disembodied me. Tore me to pieces. Took what they wanted from me, and then - left. They just left. Turned me into somebody I hardly even recognise now.” Morgana laughed as the memories erupted inside her mind. “D’you know what I hate the most? I’s when they say, _oh, how I miss the old Morgana, how I miss he person that you were, oh, and your kindness, and your heart_ \- but dont they - don’t they get it? The old Morgana was scared, she was terrified _all the time_! She had nightmares that made her set fire to her curtains, and at times, she wished that she could set even _Camelot_ on fire! But they didn’t know. Didn’t see. Didn’t want to see. All they saw was what I cared to show them. And they speak of it - they speak of it as though there were a good and a bad Morgana, as though these were two very different people, but they don’t get it! The Morgana I am now, the hatred that she feels, that very hatred took root in good Morgana’s heart, and that’s that! It didn’t come out of nowhere! There was always something - deficient with me, something _broken_ , and that’s where all the rage and hatred grew! And yet they keep asking us to cut ourselves, to dismember ourselves, to tear ourselves to pieces so that we can suit them better. And it’s hardly different for you, Merlin! That’s what’ll be said of you - oh, how I wish the young Merlin, the innocent Merlin, the just-a-servant Merlin, the Merlin who had no magic. But you do have magic. As do I. And we can’t - we can’t keep doing that. Keep breaking ourselves _for_ them. They can’t just _pick_ what they want. That’s not how it works! It’s not - it’s not fair.” There were tears in her eyes. She blinked them away. “It’s not fair. Because in the end, the only thing keeping all of these pieces together is our hatred… it’s all that’s left of us. All that matters in the end. To them, and to you.”

“You are not deficient,” Merlin fiercely said.

“That’s all you got out of it?”

“You’re not deficient,” he insisted. “Neither am I. We just… are. And if we had been somewhere else, at some other time, some other place, then maybe we wouldn’t have been broken. Maybe we would’ve existed - properly.”

Morgana felt a more genuine smile brush her lips. “Good night, Merlin.”

“Morgana?”

She said nothing.

“Can I tell you a secret?”

She closed her eyes.

“I’m no better than these people you speak of, because I miss myself, too. I miss the Merlin that I used to be. The life that he used to have. I miss him.” She heard him sniff. “But I would rather be the Merlin that I am now, as broken as he may be, and be in this room with you. I swear it.”

She fell asleep with a taste of salt on her tongue.

oOOo

“You said you had hatred in your heart.”

“Yes.”

“Why? How did you-”

“I thought - they’ll all hate me anyway at some point. So I should hate them first.”

“Did it make it easier afterwards? Easier to be hated?” Merlin genuinely wondered if it had worked; wondered if, at some point, he had chosen the wrong path.

But Morgana’s answer was categorical. “No.” When she next spoke, he could hear the regret in her voice. “At least you had time. You had time with Arthur, with all of them. Time to love and to be loved.”

“Even if it was all a lie?”

“It doesn’t matter that it wasn’t entirely genuine. What matters is, you had it. All that matters is time, when it comes down to it, isn’t it? It’s all that really matters.”

“And what about now? What about the time we have now?”

“That’s borrowed time, nothing more. We will die soon, Merlin. Why? Afraid?”

“Are you?”

“Me, scared? Of course not.”

oOOo

“It’s awfully twisted, isn’t it?” Morgana observed one day. “To think that we went from smiling, protecting, _loving_ each other to… this. Whatever this is. Trying to figure out the best way to bring the others down to their knees. We never truly were each other to love, were we? Neither of us. ‘S like the gods were eager to play some kind of twisted game with us, some kind of game for entertainment, and did that by placing us all in the same room, same age, same world, but creating us all so different from one another. One great cruel joke, that’s all it was. Making us their puppets, drunk in the idea that we were manipulating each other when, all along, we never had any real power over our destinies. We were _destined_ to fall. And we thought ourselves so clever… as though any of us held the dice… one great cruel joke, that’s all it was. And the world had to pay the price for it.”

“It’s easier to think of it that way, isn’t it?” Merlin replied. “To try to tell ourselves that whatever happened, there’s nothing we could have done to stop it. That - that we’re not responsible for our actions. That destiny is the only one to blame. Because as scary as it may be to fathom that, it is much less scary than to admit that we did all of this by ourselves, isn’t it? Than to admit to ourselves that _we did this_ \- that we destroyed each other and ourselves, that we, just us four, us three, us two, did all of this _on our own_. That we were the ones that caused so much destruction and suffering. I’d much rather blame destiny for it, if I could, for we believe destiny capable of even the biggest calamities, while ourselves, however… I’d never have believed ourselves to be able to dig a pit so large that we could bury the whole of humanity in it, bodies and souls together, dreams and nightmares and hopes and fears, all of it in one great pit. That thought would have broken me.” Lowly, he added: “But maybe that’s what it would have taken to stop us. Maybe that’s what we would have deserved. Some… sign that what we did was wrong.”

Morgana shook her head. “Don’t torture yourself so. We’ve fallen either way. Doesn’t matter how. The High Priestess Morgana and the prophesied Emrys, dying together, on the edge of this world. Isn’t it pathetic, just in the slightest bit?”

Merlin chuckled. “People will call it heart-breaking.”

“That’s because they’re all so eager to make poetry out of ugliness,” she sneered. “’S the only way they’ll take it, the only version of death that they’re willing to accept. They apply poetry as a filter to this world, a way to see things differently, in a much prettier light. Poetry’s just another curtain veiling men from the truth.”

“What truth, Morgana? Truth that we failed? That we’re broken?”

She looked at him sadly. “That there is no truth. That nothing is right. That whatever we do, we’ll always be confused, we’ll never be complete. That even now, on the brink of death, I still can’t tell whether we could’ve done things differently… I still can’t tell whether it was all worth it. And I can’t help wondering whether there would be some version of me, some place, some time, that I might actually _love_.”

Merlin let out a small sigh.

“Let’s tell ourselves that, then. That in some world, some other reality, we’re each our better selves. Let’s tell ourselves that, just this once.”

Morgana nodded.

oOOo

“How d’you reckon the poets will call it, you, who happen to be so good with words?” Morgana called one morning, from where she was sat, opposite from Merlin. The guards, after having kept a close eye on them to check that they were not going to attempt to kill each other again, had finally released them from their bindings. “The Great Demise of the High Priestess and the grand Emrys?”

Merlin hummed thoughtfully, assessing Morgana’s words. “The Tomb of the Two Traitors?” he suggested, the shadow of a grin almost brushing his lips.

“How about…” Morgana began, and there was something in her tone, something in the sheer lightness of it, that made Merlin glance up in surprise. He could have mistaken her for a child at that instant, were it not for those very heavy shadows that never seemed to leave her face. “… the Demon’s Retreat?” As she looked up at Merlin, almost eager for his approval, the warlock was once more mesmerised for a few instants, at a loss for words.

And then, as quickly as they’d been gone, the words were back. “Or perhaps… a Crypt for Two Dear Friends?” He looked up at Morgana once again, and caught her hard gaze on him. So he gave an apologetic grimace, asking, “Too sentimental?”

Morgana acquiesced. “Too sentimental.”

Forcing joviality back into his tone, the warlock eagerly said, “Let’s go with Demons’ Retreat, then! I must say I quite like the ring of it.”

“Hurrah! Demons’ Retreat it is,” Morgana fake cheered, “I’ll drink to that!” And she raised up in the air an inexistent glass. Merlin imitated her, his gesture grandiosely theatrical, and felt half-drunk already with the mere thought of it.

He quite suddenly mused that they must make a pathetic sight, the two of them, two sorrowful shells of the persons they had once been, each sat at an opposite corner of a rather small cell… and yet, Merlin did not feel pathetic. All that he felt was weariness, a sense of serenity at the thought of leaving this world, and a misplaced sense of belonging, too. For once in his life, he did not feel any particular need to pretend. He did not need to act the fool, nor to embrace his fate as Emrys, bringer of a new, juster world. Here, he could just be his own sorry self, old and aware and done. This was a sort of freedom, he supposed. This cell had given him more freedom than Camelot had in years. Maybe this is where I truly belong, he found himself thinking, scratching the ground with the tip of his foot. Crouching in the dirt like vermin, free never to have to face daylight and men again. Maybe the dirt is where I belong. Dirt, and my demons, finally allowed to breathe. At least, here, he did not have to pretend any longer. Whatever went through his mind, he said it.

Bloody Uther had to be chuckling in his grave.

“Do you blame him?”

“Huh?”

“Your _king_.”

“Oh.” Merlin gave it a serious thought. “He was wrong to treat me so,” he finally acknowledged, finding it slightly funny that the one time he and Morgana were pretending to drink was actually the moment when he felt most sober. “But…. I’ve made heavy mistakes, too. It was wrong of me to think myself worthy of redemption, or even of forgiveness. I mean, you’ve said it yourself. The Demons’ Retreat.” He chuckled. “There can be no redemption for those like us. In fact, I don’t think there can be any redemption for anyone at all. The great difference is, they believe that they can. It’s all in the head. All in the way that we see each other and ourselves. _They_ are redeemable, because the world is ready to accept their apologies. Kings - kings will always be forgiven, even if they don’t even apologise; they’ll always be worth much more than the likes of us. You and me, Morgana… we’re not… we’re…”

“Lost cause?” she suggested, a slight smile tugging at her lips.

He nodded. “Yeah. Lost cause for this society. We’re not worthy of anybody’s forgiveness, because no matter what we do, they’ll always hate us. And that’s because they need us. They’ll always need people like us. People to be blamed, and, hey, we’re right here. Good old-fashioned villains.” He smiled. “Nobody’s protecting us. Why should they? There’s nothing in it for them. Kill us, and you’ll have killed a monster. Nobody grieves a monster. And if we don’t deserve to be grieved, then maybe we don’t even deserve to live.”

“Why are you like that?” Morgana frowned. “Aren’t you the tiniest bit bitter?”

“I’m not,” he frankly answered. “I was, but I’m not any longer. Now, I’m just - I’m just so _tired_.”

He felt ready to let go of this world, and of what little it had given him that it had not yet taken back.

 _Is this how broken souls see the world?_ If so, he understood why they never found a way to fix themselves. He could hardly draw strength from this world, when all he saw of it were broken structures in which he no longer belonged.

oOOo

“Why are you like this?”

“Like this?”

“So… serene. Happy to be dying. Shouldn’t you be… reciting an ode for your king, or something?”

Merlin snorted. “And shouldn’t you be cursing me, or something?”

Morgana’s lips twitched. “Maybe I am. How would you know?” The silence only lasted two seconds. “Alright, you’re right, I’m not. ‘M bored.”

“We could always try to confess,” the warlock suggested, shrugging. “To atone for our sins, or whatever.”

“Or whatever.”

They shared a glance, and then they were both laughing.

“D’you think that our gods are listening?”

“Gods, I hope not.”

They laughed again.

oOOo

“What are we, Merlin?” she asked one late night, holding his arm.

They huddled close for warmth. The air in the cell was _freezing cold_.

Merlin hummed thoughtfully. They could barely see each other in the dead of night, but they could feel the other’s silhouette pressing against their own, and it was enough.

He could hear the tremor in Morgana’s voice, although it might just as easily have been caused by the cold. Either way, he did not remark on it. They never remarked on the other’s weaknesses. They had each broken enough times already in the past to stop caring about the other’s fractures. They were mere companions on their way to hell. Merlin could live with that.

“What sort of terrible creatures are we, to be despised so? Where do we _belong_? How do we make sense of that _mess_ in our hearts? What makes us so different from them all?”

 _We curse men aloud_ , Merlin mused, _but when on our own, we_ _’re not cursing them any longer, are we? We’re envying them. Loving them. Mourning the persons we could have been if we’d been willing to be like them._

“Lost souls.” He cracked Morgana a feeble smile. “Wandering aimlessly, like wind. Broken gusts of wind, whispering words of secrets to the trees and of grief to the earth. We push men away because we never know if we can rely on them. People rely on _us_ , and that’s the only way it can be. How could the wind rely on anyone, when it’s constantly moving, changing its shape, meeting new homes? That’s you and I, Morgana. We’ll never settle anywhere. Always on the run, searching for a place to hide. We tell ourselves that one day, we’ll be brave. And we are - some days. We’ll be brave one day and cower the next. Not show our faces for a month, and then suddenly rise again, hearts filled with rage, a rage too strong for words to depict. The rage is constantly growing. We’re wandering souls, wandering gusts of wind going opposite directions, and sometimes, just sometimes, we collide. We hate it, but like it and need it at the same time, because at least the collision makes us feel alive. And we trust the other to be an even worse person than ourselves. So, there’s that. And yet we can’t help but think that death must be a relief. To feel dead - no. To feel _nothing_. We dream of it, you and I.”

“Why?” Her eyes were shining in the darkness of the cell. “Why do we entertain such dreams, Merlin?”

He could hear the other questions in her voice. _Why can_ _’t we dream of other things - food for winter, a home for our families, a marriage of love?_ Normal _things?_

“Maybe we feel too much. Love too much. Believe too much. It’s everything or nothing. There’s no in-between. And yet… and yet it’s that very same in-between that we’re stuck into. ‘S bloody unfair, is what it is. Bust we’ve got to carry on. To play our roles. Put on our costumes - that is, until the gods deem us unworthy of them, unworthy of the play, and finally decide to cast us aside. It seems that our time has finally come. Our time to rest.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in the gods’ intervention in this.”

He looked up, sadly. “Sometimes, I want to believe.”

She acquiesced. Then, on a slightly lighter tone, “Will we be buried in the same grave, d’you think?”

“Dunno. I fear for the sanity of our ghosts if we are.”

There were a few minutes of silence, before Morgana said, in an almost wishful tone, or, if not wishful, then at least a little bit dreamy, “Oh, we would have been unbeatable, Merlin.”

He had a sad smile at that.

“Would we? Sometimes, I wonder. Maybe that’s how we were made from the start. Shattered glass, all over our hearts. Wind in our souls. Were we always bound to fall at some point?”

“You think too much.”

“Yes.” Softer, he added, as a sort of conclusion, “At least we’re in the same pit, now. I’m glad for that.”

He heard no answer from Morgana, but he felt her head loll against his shoulder to rest against his chest. It felt odd - to have her be so close to his heart.

But it also felt right, provided he still knew what the word meant.

It felt right, and he let that be enough for now.

oOOo

“I’ve gone soft over the days, you know. A few months ago, I would have killed you where you stood.”

“A few months ago, you _did_ try to kill me where I stood,” Merlin reminded her, and she could hear the smirk in his tone.

“Oh, don’t be such a spoilsport. You did, too.”

“Well. A few months ago, we were in Camlann, not locked together in that cell, doomed to perish together.”

“Circumstances,” Morgana decided, crossing her arms over her chest. “That’s all it is.”

“Sure.” He was smiling again - she just _knew_ it.

A bit uncertainly, she asked, “Was it circumstance that pitted us against each other, too?”

She heard him release a breath, then say, “I hope. Gods, I hope it.”

They stayed silent for the rest of the day.

Come nightfall, Merlin had a question for her.

“Morgana?”

“Yeah?”

“Say, what’s your biggest regret? The one thing you would do if you were reborn someplace, away from all this mess?”

She thought about it. Thought about it for the entire night, in fact. Tried to gather the tiny fragments of a dream she had once entertained, when she had fancied herself a saviour, a warrior, a leader - a protector?

Then, finally, she spoke. “I’d build a home. A refuge for those like us. A place where they could grow - grow to love themselves, and to be loved, in a safe haven, a place where no pyre and no sword could ever reach them.”

“We’ll do that,” Merlin fiercely swore.

 _In another life_ was implied, and even though he did not say it, they both heard it.

When nightfall came again, it was Morgana’s turn to ask him a question.

“Merlin?”

“Yeah?”

“If this was your last night on Earth, what would you want to dream about?”

The warlock smiled, and he suddenly looked much younger than he had in days, weeks, even. “About a kingdom where all would be well. Albion reunited, its men and women standing together like friends, brothers, sisters, _kin_. A place that would know only harmony. The Albion that Kilgharrah depicted me, the Albion whose guardian Aithusa was to be, but that we never got in the end.”

Morgana swallowed despite the heavy lump in her throat, wondering why she felt so uneasy. “The prophecy would be achieved, then, wouldn’t it? I suppose I’m dead in that fantasy of yours, then.”

She couldn’t blame him for it. She really couldn’t.

“No,” answered Merlin, firmly. She looked up at him curiously. “It would be a place where we would all stand together, as equals. Magic would run freely within the walls of Camelot. We’d be alright. We’d _all_ be alright.” He sighed, perhaps in longing. “What about you, then?”

 _I_ _’ve never been in anybody’s dream before_ , she thought.

“Oh,” she said, caught off guards by the questions. She quickly regained her composure. “Pft. You know me. Your king being dead, or something. Oh, and Camelot being set on fire. That’d be nice.”

But when she laid down on the ground and closed her eyes, it was Merlin’s story, unbidden, that began to unravel inside her head… and she couldn’t help wishing that she would dream of it.

oOOo

Were there footsteps, or was Merlin just imagining them inside his head?

Either way, there they were. Two foes of society, about to die. Could two persons die _together_?

“They said they’d kill us today,” Merlin said. He could hardly recognise his own cool tone. He felt… detached. Thinking of one’s impending death was an odd thing, and not a pleasant one.

“They did.”

He looked at her. Were these to be their goodbyes?

“All I’ve ever wanted,” Morgana began to say, “was to be known. Not loved. Just… _known_ would have been enough.”

He nodded, then tilted his head respectfully, grateful that they’d had these moments, but knowing that it had to end. He cleared his throat. “Lady Morgana.”

Something sad flashed in Morgana’s eyes, but she adopted a similar attitude to his all the same. “Lord Emrys.”

They remained there, standing a few feet from each other, staring in silence. Merlin thought it was torture.

The footsteps grew heavier. There was no doubt that the sound was real, now.

He looked back at Morgana. As much as he tried to see his archenemy in front of him, all that he saw was the woman alongside whom he had laughed, argued and wept during the last few weeks.

He didn’t know how to be a stranger to her after all that had occurred.

Her voice suddenly rose, clear and unflinching. “Did we both marry our roles so well that now we must die in their clothes as well?”

Something automatically shifted in Merlin’s heart as he took a step forward. _This is Morgana standing in front of you._ “Nobody’s watching,” he whispered.

Morgana took a step forward, too. “What – what about the gods?” she asked in a very small voice, and all of a sudden, it struck him: how much she looked like a child, a scared child.

And Merlin felt like a child, too. As he tried to smile, he knew that the smile was meant to comfort them both. He felt like a child who had played at being a grown-up for far too long. “I don’t think they like us very much,” he said with a hint of laughter I nhis tone.

Morgana came closer, and then she was whispering, as the sounds of footsteps were getting closer and closer, “I lied earlier, Merlin. I lied. I’ve never died before. I’ve killed. I’ve hated. It’s an easy thing to hate, and I figured out how to do it rather early, too. How to hate myself. Others. And that… that thing on the edge of my fingers, it doesn’t take a genius to know how to hate, it’s rather easy, in fact. But… to die… I _am_ afraid to die.”

“I think I’m afraid, too,” Merlin confessed.

“Will you… will you hold my hand and let me hold yours?”

And so he held her hand, glanced up at her hesitantly, and squeezed. She squeezed back. Playfulness dancing in his eyes, Merlin brushed Morgana’s hands with his lips for an instant, saying, “My lady.”

When Morgana smiled, her entire face lit up. “Oh, Merlin.” She brought her other hand to their intertwined hands, and asked, “You’ll hold my hand, then? At least until the gates of hell open before me?”

Merlin laughed, nervously, but also happily, in a way. “Oh, don’t worry,” he said. “When the gates open, we’ll be going there together.”

“We’ll haunt the place,” Morgana said, teasingly.

“We will.”

The door of the cell burst open, but neither of them would pay it any attention. Merlin was looking into Morgana’s eyes, and she was looking into his.

“Did we ever have a chance, Merlin? Any of us?” Her voice sounded desperate.

Leaning towards her, Merlin let the tears flow down his cheeks freely. “I’d like to believe that in some world, we did. And that in some world, we embraced it.”

_Instead of embracing this chaos, this unending cycle of entangled destinies._

He knew that they had the same world written in their respective minds - a world of harmony, and love, and belonging. A world where they knew each other. Accepted each other. Where they were allowed to be themselves, together.

“Do dead men dream?” he wondered aloud.

“I don’t know. But if they do, I think we’ll have very nice dreams,” Morgana kindly said. “Dreams of men that are kin and magic that flows freely.”

“And a white dragon.”

“ _Plenty_ of white dragons.”

“That sounds nice.”

“It is. I can see it already. It’ll be our home.”

Merlin rested his forehead against Morgana’s, and looked into her eyes one last time before closing his own.

He thought of this other life, of these other Morganas and Merlins who could have been so many things in this other world.

If this was how two beings died together, then Merlin thought it was alright. He wouldn’t have wanted things to end any other way than with his kin’s skin against his own, her hands touching his, and their respective dreams meddling with the other’s, becoming so closely entangled that it seemed that there had only been one dream to begin with, one shared dream between two kindred spirits that had been parted some place along the way, but had somehow, in the end, found their way back to each other.


End file.
